Nancy Pearl, author of Book Lust, has a very interesting philosophy which I pretty much agree with, you can read the whole reasoning behind it here:
http://www.theglobeandmail.com/arts/books-and-media/nancy-pearls-rule-of-50-for-dropping-a-bad-book/article565170/
But this is the main idea:
Give a book 50 pages. When you get to the bottom of Page 50, ask yourself if you're really liking the book. If you are, of course, then great, keep on reading. But if you're not, then put it down and look for another. (Always keep in mind that there's nothing to stop you from going back to it later, whether that might be in six days or six years. Or 60 years. There is many a book that I couldn't get into the first time, or even two, that I tried to read it, and then, giving it one more chance, totally fell under its spell. The book obviously hadn't changed - but I had.)
And if, at the bottom of Page 50, all you're really interested in is who marries whom, or who the murderer is, then turn to the last page and find out. If it's not on the last page, turn to the penultimate page, or the antepenultimate page, or however far back you have to go to discover what you want to know. And rest assured that, despite the sophistication of computerized checkout and check-in technology at the modern library, there's no way that anyone there will be able to tell (even if they were interested) whether you've really read every page of the book you just returned.
I follow a similar rule. I have given up on some books long before 50 pages. But I generally will give an author 1/3 of the book. If by then I am bored, don't care or am rolling my eyes or dreading picking it up again then I am done. Sometimes I have read the end of the book and it's given me incentive to at least skim through the rest if the book. But more often than not it has made me glad I didn't waste anymore of my time.
posted 3 months ago. ( permalink )
